L'BRARY OF CONGRESS 

021 140 428 



HoUinger Corp< 
pH8.5 



D 659 
.B4 C3 
Copy 1 



THE RESTORATION OF BELGIUM 
AND HER FUTURE 



>> 



aA/carnoy 



[Reprint from the University of California Chronicle, Vol. XXI, No. 1 ] 



n; of D« 

NOV 6 19 J 3 



Uls)^^ 



134^3 



THE RESTORATION OF BELGIUM AND HER 
FUTURE 



A. J. Carnoy 



The disaster that struck Belgium moved the world not 
only on account of the revolting injustice done to her but 
because it ruined a country which before the war was 
counted among the happiest in the world. In modern times 
Belgium had revived the prosperity which in the Middle 
Ages had made her the economic and moral center of 
Europe. This she owed partly to her location at the cross- 
road of the traffic between England and the Continent and 
between the Teutonic world and France with her Mediter- 
ranean ''Hinterland." Antwerp was the natural harbor 
for the most active industrial section of the Continent, com- 
prising the districts of the Rhine, of the Moselle, the Bel- 
gian coal country of Liege, and Charleroi, the north of 
France. It was at a relatively short distance from great 
coal basins and even from the Lorraine iron mines. The 
plains of Flanders and central Belgium were among the 
most fertile in the world. The industry and the inde- 
fatigable laboring ardor of the inhabitants had been the 
most decisive factor in its prosperity in our days as well 
as in the past. There were the textile works of Flanders, 
including the flax industry of Courtrai, and the laces 
patiently prepared in the cottages with red roofs and green 
shutters, or in the humble dwellings of the Beguines, where 



everything is white from the curtains and the walls to the 
serene souls of the maidens. 

The clay of the Scheldt was still giving hops for the 
national beers, bricks for the graceful boroughs and towns 
with stepped gables, crowded on the banks of the river. 
The cereals were growing higher than a man's head in the 
plains of Hesbaye, and with the sugar beets were bringing 
great wealth every autumn to the thrifty farmers. This 
rich soil also concealed beds of porphyry and marble, while 
farther south was the coal belt from the German frontier 
to the north of France. Around the mines had developed 
big steel works and workshops for engines alongside of glass 
works that had no counterpart anywhere, and a zinc indus- 
try which realized one-fourth of the production of that 
metal in the world. 

Belgian industry under the impulse of Leopold II had 
started to expand far outside Belgium, making up by the 
ability of the engineers and the thrift of the administrators 
for the advantages enjoyed by other competitors who were 
supported by much more powerful national assistance. By 
prosperity we had also restored the artistic activity that 
had made the glory of the Low Countries in the fifteenth 
and the sixteenth centuries; painting and music were 
flourishing more than ever; sculpture had just seen an 
artist of the first rank in the person of Constantin Meunier ; 
a brilliant literature had developed in a quarter of a cen- 
tury both in Flemish and in French. Maeterlinck, the 
interpreter of the mysteries of nature, and Verhaeren, the 
poet of modern industrialism, belonged already to the 
world, while Lemonnier, Rodenbach, Stijn Streuvels, Guido 
Gezelle, were acquiring ever-growing reputations. 

The graceful city halls, the elegant churches inherited 
from a past of freedom and mysticism, together with the 
sumptuous and sometimes not uninteresting buildings 
erected everywhere in the recent period of prosperity, all 
had contributed to crowd on a very small area much beauty 
and much wealth, so that an enemy seized with a blind 



fury could in a few days inflict the most irreparable loss 
on that historical ground where democracy was born in 
Europe. 

Although the armistice saved much that probably would 
have been doomed— it is reported that infernal machines 
had been placed in the basement of the celebrated Palace 
of Justice of Brussels— the destruction wrought by the 
ruthless enemy has been enormous. It has been exerted 
upon many things that are not visible to a superficial 
observer, but it has struck Belgian prosperity to its very 
heart by destroying completely her industries. The losses 
are due to a small extent only to destruction unavoidable 
in case of war, such as results from bombardment, fighting 
in villages, or the blowing up of bridges. The greatest 
damage has been perpetrated in defiance of international 
law. It comprises the willful and wanton burning of 
Louvain, Termonde, Dinant, and many villages, the plun- 
dering of innumerable houses, the cutting of the forests of 
Flanders and Campine and many woods in the Ardennes, 
and the requisition of all kinds of commodities, notably 
the wool of the mattresses, copper in all its forms from 
kettles to lighting fixtures, great quantities of domestic 
linen, of leather, and of clothing. 

Moreover, in execution of a plan skilfully drawn up by 
a German industrial magnate. Dr. Rathenau,^ all raw 
materials as well as the machinery were systematically 
though gradually commandeered by the invader in the 
factories of Belgium and northern France.^ 

According to the report issued by M. Hoover in last 
December, out of the fifty steel furnaces in Belgium thirty- 
five or forty have been deliberately destroyed. Many of 
the textile mills have been put out of commission, especially 

1 Easier Nachrichten, Jan. 5, 1916 ; Zeitschrif t der Oesterreischen 
Ingenieur und Architekten Vereines, Apr. 21, 1916. 

2 The list of those requisitions together with details concerning the 
Kriegsrohstoffabteilung of Dr. Eathenau is to be found in F. Passe- 
lecq's Unemployment in Belgium during the German occupation. 
London, 1917. 



those with modern equipment. The glass industry has 
suffered less and most of the coal mines have been saved 
through President Wilson's menace. 

In many cases, when the machines were not taken, they 
were broken to pieces and more than once the agents who 
performed these destructions made no mystery of the fact 
that the intention was to make Belgium incapable of re- 
cuperation after the war. Such a confession, for instance, 
was made during the pillaging of the "La Providence" 
work shops at Charleroi,^ and the German industrial maga- 
zine, Export (Dec. 28, 1915) states with satisfaction that 
''after the war Belgian and French competition will no 
longer exist on account of the destruction wrought by the 
war." In her plan for the ravaging of Belgian industry, 
Germany has considered all along the interests of her busi- 
ness men as much as the requirements of the war. The 
report of the meeting of the ' ' German Economic Commission 
for Belgium," held in Brussels on June 19, 1915* is very 
suggestive in this respect. The Union of German Glass- 
makers, for instance, had taken steps to compass the ruin 
of the Belgian glass industry^ and a similar effort on the 
part of the manufacturers of cement is related in the 
Deutsche Tageszeitung (May 29, 1917). Thej^ have gone so 
far as to violate the secrets of fabrication, as was the case 
when Dr. Emil Bronner penetrated into the manufacture 
of artificial silk at Obourg (Hainault). The flax industry, 
prosperous in Flanders for centuries' has been wantonly 
ruined for years, by the burning as firewood of the big vats 
(hekken) used for the retting and by the removal of copper 
from the mills. 

The depredations in cash have also reached a very 
impressive amount. Not only the public revenue of Bel- 
gium, which should have been spent exclusively for the 



3 Informations Beiges, no. 446. 

4Passelecq, La Politique Economique de I'Allemagne en Belgique 
occupee. Le Havre, 1918. 

s Wirtschaftzeitimg der Zentralmaclite, no. 40 (Nov. 10, 1916). 



needs of the occupied territoiy, has been used for the 
support of German enterprises, such as the Flemish 
intrigue, but a heavy war contribution has been levied. 
Amounting at first to $8,000,000 a month, it was raised to 
$12,000,000 in 1917, constituting a yearly charge of $144,- 
000,000. It was supposed to be destined to the support of 
the army of occupation, but it considerably exceeded the 
needs of the Landstrum garrisons. Moreover, cities have 
been heavily fined (Brussels paid $10,000,000, Antwerp 
$10,000,000, Liege $4,000,000, etc.). 

The cruelties of forced labor and of the deportations 
added to privations have inflicted another damage upon 
Belgium by deteriorating the working power of the laborers. 
While this loss, however, cannot be figured out in money, 
the Belgian Commission for the Estimation of War Dam- 
ages is reported to have put the amount of material losses 
resulting from the German occupation of Belgium at 
$7,600,000,000. 

This shows that the actual destruction of houses, villages, 
and cities, which would be the feature most striking to any 
visitor to the devastated areas, is, distressful as it is, only 
a small part of the damage actually inflicted on the country. 
Nevertheless, it is one that most urgently demands repara- 
tion. Forty-five thousand houses had been destroyed before 
the 'offensive in Flanders. More than four billion bricks 
will be necessary to restore the buildings. It is encourag- 
ing to learn that in prevision of that task, important com- 
panies have been organized during the period of occupation 
in order to produce bricks of good quality in large quan- 
tities, a desideratum of pre-war Belgium. Such is the 
society which has acquired a large area of clayish ground 
at Trazegnies. 

Thousands of refugees coming back from England, 
France, Holland, and elsewhere will find their houses 
burned down or shelled, and emergency houses will have to 
be erected, especially for the Yser region and for othei' 
battle areas. To hasten and facilitate the building of such 



dwellings the ''King Albert Fund" was founded in 1917. 
It has various activities and is making a study of types of 
houses, labor, the buying and the transportation of mater- 
ials, and similar problems.^ 

In occupied Belgium also, although little has been 
actually rebuilt, plans have been made for the restoration 
of farms and workmen 's houses. The ' ' Societe royale agri- 
cole de I'Est de la Belgique" has organized a prize 
competition for farms to be built in the Liege region and 
the ''Land Tuinbouw Comiteit" has done the same for the 
province of Antwerp. The provincial administration of 
Limburg has elaborated the plan of a large industrial city 
to be erected all at once on the site of the new coal mines. 
Full consideration will be given to all the desiderata of 
modern economists concerning comfort and hygiene."^ 
Sound principles will underlie the plans for rebuilding 
towns and villages, and special care will be taken in regard 
to the houses for laborers. Our workmen have given proof 
of patriotism and endurance during the long period of 
occupation. They have stubbornly resisted the efforts of 
Germany to make them work for the enemy, and have 
yielded only to actual starvation; our labor parties both 
Christian and Socialistic have constantly refused to join 
the various pro-peace labor movements favored by Ger- 
many. Even in the times of the deportations, in their 
appeal to all the workmen of the world, they carefully 
insisted that "whatever our torture may be, we will not 
have peace without the independence of our country and the 
triumph of justice."* It is therefore only just that they 
receive a special consideration in the restoration of the 
country which so urgently needs their labor to revive the 
prosperitj^ of former times. Tenements and slum dwellings 
must become altogether a thing of the past. To this enrl 
Belgium will simply have to give a new extension to the 

6 Informations Beiges, no. 243. 

T Ihid., 369. 

8 Appeal of the Belgian Workmen. London, Speaight, 1916. 



activity of the ' ' Comites de patronage des maisons ouvrieres" 
created in application of the 1889 Housing Act. These 
organizations provide capital for building houses to be put 
at the disposal of workmen, who become their owners after 
twenty-five years by paying a small mensuality covering 
rent, reimbursement and insurance. If death occurs before 
the period is ended, the house becomes the property of the 
workman's family. The insurance is for that eventuality.^ 

The rebuilding of cities such as Louvain, Termonde and 
Dinant, and of historical or artistical buildings, presents a 
very different problem. A controversy has been conducted 
among our artists on the subject, with the result that only 
those churches or city halls are to be restored which have 
preserved their walls, and their traditional appearance. 
It would be vain to erect anew those that have been razed 
to the ground, since the new structure could only be a soul- 
less replica like the copy of an old painting. Some cities 
have made fine plans already. The center of Louvain is to 
be rebuilt in a manner that will give a more appropriate 
frame to the admirable city hall which escaped destruction 
by arson in 1914. The ruins of Ypres and Dinant will be 
preserved. 

Actual ^reconstruction in cities has been very unim- 
portant up to now. There was mistrust regarding the 
possible conduct of the Germans in- case of a retreat through 
Belgium, and no desire was shown to accept German com- 
binations for the rebuilding of the houses. In 1915, the 
Department of Banks of the German Government in 
Belgium invited the Belgian Banks to allow a credit of 
$6,000,000 for reconstruction. The Belgian banks refused 
to agree to this. In 1916, the Germans provided a sum out 
of the Belgian budget for loans to those who would rebuild, 
but on condition that the plans be approved by the German 



9 Details on that interesting combination and on the housing con- 
ditions in Belgium are given in Kowntree 's Land and Labour, lessons 
from Belgium, pp. 428ff. The conclusion of the writer is that ''the 
Belgian housing conditions are somewhat better than the British" 
(p. 459). 



10 

commissioners. This condition defeated the plan. Von 
Bissing, persuaded that the Belgians wanted to preserve, 
their ruins as monuments of the German fury, signed on 
September 12, 1916, an order that all ruined houses should 
be razed or rebuilt. Consequently the walls of burned- 
down houses were torn down to a man's height, so that in 
Louvain, in Dinant, etc., many streets run between what 
seem to be two rows of garden walls. A few persons availed 
themselves of the offered subsidies (about $600,000 only 
were granted in this way).^° 

More urgent even than the rebuilding of houses is the 
reconstruction of the means of transportation. The signa- 
ture of the armistice has prevented the complete destructio)i 
of the Belgian railroad system in the east of the country, 
although in a zone twenty miles in width everj^thing had 
already been ruined at that moment. Germany has been 
obliged to return a large quantity of railroad material. 
The situation therefore is not so bad as was expected, but 
it is far from satisfactory, since the tracks, stations, and 
other equipment have often been neglected. Many rails, 
especially of the light railways, have been sent to the front 
in France or in Russia. Out of the previous material, Bel- 
gium had only preserved nineteen hundred engines out of 
four thousand five hundred and seventy- two, seventeen hun- 
dred passenger cars out of seven thousand nine hundred 
and ninety, eleven thousand freight cars out of ninety-nine 
thousand four hundred and thirty-six. These remnants 
had escaped to France through Flanders in October, 1914, 
and have been preserved in the garage of Oissel, but part 
of them were handed over to the Allies, notably to the 
American Army for the transportation of troops. The 
Belgian government has already given orders for material 
and undoubtedly more will follow. Stores of telegraphic 
poles, rails, sleepers, etc., have been prepared, while seven 
thousand railroad emploj^ees have been waiting, while help- 
ing in various war activities in France and in England, 

10 Cf. Stubben's article in Deutsche Bauzeitung, Feb. 6, 1918. 



11 

for the day when the Belgian government would need them. 
It will, however, take some time and much financing before 
the Belgian railroad system recovers its previous splendor.^^ 

But one must not only repair. The present period has 
opened our eyes to various deficiencies in our transports. 
The number of canals providing deep transportation should 
be increased so as to help in the revival of our industries 
which owed much of their success to a low price of pro- 
duction. Moreover, the prosperity of Antwerp will depend 
greatly on the extension of the canal system in its hinter- 
land. The Brussels ship canal was completed last year. 
There remains to deepen the canal between Brussels and 
Charleroi, so as to facilitate the transportation of coal to 
the harbor. The Campine canals, already crowded, will 
have to be multiplied for the transportation of the coal 
recently discovered in that region. The canalization of the 
Moselle, which is not far from completion, might send to the 
Ehine and to Rotterdam the products of the Saar district, 
but the canalization of the Chiers, which is contemplated, 
would divert the same traffic to the Meuse and in that 
way to Antwerp. 

The prosperity of Antwerp in the future is a question 
of capital importance for the future of Belgium. The Ger- 
mans during their occupation endeavored to imbue the 
Belgians with the fear that the loss of the German com- 
merce would be disastrous to Antwerp. In fact it would 
be even more disastrous for the Germans, who need that 
harbor for southern and western Germany, as Cons. Von 
Grossmann shows in the Milnchner Neiieste Nachrichten 
(May 2, 1918). However, since Antwerp should be in a 
state to dispense with the German patronage after this war, 
a start has been given to the building of Belgian craft b}^ 
the foundation during the war of the ' ' Lloyd Royal Beige ' ' 
which has built a whole series of ships in the workshops of 

11 Belgium has 30.29 miles of regular railroad tracks for 100 sq. m., 
against 22.38 in Great Britain, 15.72 in Germany, 11.72 in France. 
The proportion of light railroads was much more striking: 22.8 m, 
for 100 sq. m. in Belgium against 2.0 in Germany, 1.8 in France. 



12 



Whiteinch on the Clyde. The company will soon start a 
Belgian line from Antwerp to New York. Belgian and 
English ship owners seem to have agreed upon arrange- 
ments to make up for an eventual loss of the German traffic. 
The importance of the latter to Antwerp, moreover, has 
been exaggerated. Only one-fifth of the ships entering that 
harbor before the war were German, while fifty per cent 
of them were English. It may be that economic agreements 
with France will be concluded, to increase the share of 
Northern France in the traffic of Antwerp by doing away 
with the measures which artificially favor more remote 
French harbors at the expense of Antwerp. Much, of 
course, will depend on the extent of the revival of Belgian 
industry, which provides return freight for the ships, a 
circumstance that made much for the success of the Ant- 
werp harbor. The exploitation of the recently discovered 
coal basin in Campine near Antwerp will increase that ad- 
vantage. It is therefore to be regretted that Germany last 
year commanded an interruption in the boring of the pits. 
Although Belgium is eminently an industrial country, 
she draws a large proportion of her wealth from agricul- 
ture. As is well known, it is of the intensive type, with 
farms averaging fourteen and a half acres apiece (against 
sixty-three acres in England), and most of the cultivators 
are proprietors of their farms. It is natural enough that 
agriculture has suffered less than the industries during the 
occupation. Considering the rise in the value of land, it 
would even seem to have been prosperous. This circum- 
stance, however, is attributable to the high prices paid for 
farm products and is of a very transitory nature. In the 
meantime, the soil has been exhausted by the lack of ferti- 
lizers. Cattle and especially horses have been reduced to 
a small proportion of their normal numbers. This is a 
great loss for Belgian agriculture. An intelligent inter- 
vention of the public powers, the efforts of the League of 
Peasants (Boerenbond), and the teachings of pupils of 
the agricultural and veterinarj^ schools of Gembloux, 



\ 



13 



Cureghem, and Louvain had gradually and steadily im- 
proved the methods and particularly had introduced the 
practice of selection in the breeding of cattle and horses, 
which had given prominence to the native races : the 
Brabant cows, the big Brabant horses, and the nervous, 
indefatigable small horses of the Ardennes. Germany 
has commandeered stallions and bulls with the rest. The 
only hope of reconstruction lies in the fact that some ani- 
mals were removed in time to Holland. During years, the 
Belgians will have to resort to a large extent to congelated 
imported meat. As an emergency measure for the period 
of restoration seeds will have to be provided for farmers, 
who will start the work afresh in the devastated areas. The 
reclamation for cultivation of the battle fields will be no 
easy matter. King Albert has recently instituted a prize 
for the person who indicates the best method to be applied 
to those fields.^^ 

The restoration of industry is a much bigger problem. 
It is very urgent because Belgium does not produce enough 
food for her inhabitants and needs to import footstuifs and 
raw materials. The counterpart to those purchases must 
be found in the exportation of industrial products. Tools, 
machines, raw materials, must come quickly and many 
factories must be hurriedly rebuilt. Large credits will no 
doubt be granted to Belgium by her allies and it has been 
very gratifying to us to hear President Wilson, in his speech 
of December 2, 1918, recommend that the orders of Belgium 
and northern France be executed before the others. 

With a view to centralizing the purchase of machinery 
and raw materials and of avoiding duplication, over- 
bidding, or disorder, there was recently formed a ' ' National 
Office for the Restoration of Economic Activity in Bel- 
gium." It will act as a representative of the collected 
Belgian industries and will deal with the producers in 
foreign countries. This pooling is for the present period. 
It may, however, be the prelude of a more durable union of 

12 Information Beiges, no. 853. 



14 



Belgian manufacturers. The question has been debated in 
occupied Belgium. MM. Trasenster and Ranscelot have 
published a scheme of "Cartel" of the Belgian metallurgic 
works.^^ The chiefs of industry in the Charleroi region are 
in favor of the plan and propose to exert a pressure on the 
employers by excluding from the distribution of the raw 
materials and from the means of transportation those who 
would remain independent. Most of the industrials in the 
Liege district are hostile to such an arrangement. Their 
opinion is that freedom has always contributed to the 
development of Belgian industry. A middle course will 
probably prevail. 

The future of Belgian industry will to a great extent 
be dependent upon the decision that will be taken at the 
peace conference concerning the economic problems of the 
world. If the system of protective tariffs prevails Belgium 
hopes to receive an amicable treatment on the part of her 
allies. In many respects, Belgian products resembled those 
of Germany (textiles, machines, cement, paper, beer, furni- 
ture) and the cost of production was not very different in 
the two countries. A protective tariff against Germany 
would therefore favor Belgian exports provided the allies 
open their doors to our products. If, however, the prin- 
ciple of "equal treatment" should prevail, all barriers 
against Germany would affect our own industry and kill it. 
The results of a general free trade system, if the world be 
ripe for it, are less easy to foresee. A period of transition, 
however, should be provided during which Germany should 
be prevented from flooding Belgium and France with her 
merchandise and thus rendering impossible the restoration 
of industry in the areas she ravaged with a view to that 
result. "Dumping" on the part of her big neighbors — 
especially on the part of Germany — which have large mar- 
kets in their own lands is another danger to be considered 
for a small nation, and before the war Belgium was suffer- 
ing from it. 



13 Kolnische Zeitung, June 10, 1918, even. ed. 



15 



The great liope of Belgium is to find a larger market 
among the nations that fought and won with her. England 
and her colonies were the best buyers of Belgian products 
and there are indications that the relations between Bel- 
gium and England will become still better now that so many 
new bonds unite them. France could do much for us by 
reducing her prohibitive tariffs against textiles, artificial 
silk, machines, coal, products of conservatories, etc. A 
favorable treatment at the hands of the United States at 
least during the period of restoration is another requisite 
of Belgium's revival. In return for her courtesy, the 
United States may hope to build upon an unshakable basis 
the friendship now existing between them and our small 
nation and no doubt Belgium will accept with a special 
willingness America's products such as raw materials of 
all kinds, ore, tools, bicycles, farming engines, inexpensive 
motor cars, preserved meat, dried fruits, and foodstuffs of 
all kinds. In brief, irrespective of the principles that will 
govern the economic relations between nations in the future, 
Belgium is in the situation of a convalescent who needs for 
some time a special treatment to make her recovery pos- 
sible; i.e., favorable reception for our products in the 
market of the friendly nations and protection of our in- 
dustry" against the competition that would be deadly to it 
during the period of recoYery. These various questions 
concerning the revival of Belgian industry and commerce 
have been considered by two commissions working under 
the direction of the ministry of economic affairs created on 
October 12, 1917. 

The ministry of finances will have a no less important 
task in finding the resources immediately needed. Tlie 
Belgian debt has naturally increased much during the 
period of the war. Ten million dollars have had to be bor- 
rowed every month for the support of the army and of 
the civilians in the occupied part of the country. The 
military expenses have reached over $600,000,000 while 
$300,000,000 have been handed over to the Commission for 



16 



Eelief in Belgium. These sums will be considerably greater 
at the demobilization of the army and when the situation 
regarding food will have become normal in Belgium. The 
part played by the C. R, B. is far from ended. Its activities 
have just been enlarged so as to embrace the whole share of 
the United States in the reconstruction programme, com- 
prising all emergency measures, such as distribution of 
food in the transition period, the providing of seeds, cloth- 
ing, and materials of all kinds, and the most urgent 
measures toward the restoration of the means of transpor- 
tation and of industrial activity. 

The German war contributions paid by the provinces 
and the cities have reached an amount of about half a 
billion dollars. The money, which was lent by the con- 
sortium of Belgian banks, as aforesaid, will have to be 
repaid by the Belgian government. Large credits also 
should be placed at the disposal of industrials, bankers, the 
provinces, and other agencies, for the restoration of eco- 
nomic life. All these expenses and those incurred in the 
reconstruction of houses and buildings should, of course, 
be covered by the indemnity which Germany in strict jus- 
tice owes Belgium, and will no doubt be obliged to pay to 
her by the treaty of peace. However, until this indemnity 
is paid in full — and delays are not improbable — it is by 
means of state loans that Belgium will have to finance the 
great work of reconstruction. 

The powers who will consent to help us in this critical 
hour will have as a guarantee the good reputation of Bel- 
gium for habits of thrift, industry, and honesty, and the 
skill of our engineers, glassmakers, lacemakers, and other 
workers, trained for generations in their delicate tasks. 
Moreover, there is the natural wealth of the soil — though 
Belgium imports cereals, she exports sugar, vegetables, 
fruits, etc. — the lime, the marble, the porphyry, and lastly 
the coal of the Wallonian country. These mines will yield 
much more in the future because new veins that have been 
found south of the present exploitations are expected to 



17 



have a yearly output of about 5,000,000 tons, while in 
Campine the Limburg basin in proximity both to the 
metallurgic works of Liege and the harbor of Antwerp is 
expected to yield 15,000,000 to 20,000,000 tons a year. 
(This basin is supposed to contain 8,000,000,000 tons.) 
This will more than double the Belgian production which 
at present is 24,000,000 tons a year. 

The immense colony of Congo is another asset which 
is susceptible of great, still hardly suspected, development. 
During the war the income of the Belgian Congo has been 
trebled, while the mining district of Katanga has just 
begun to yield an output. As things are, 40,000 tons of 
copper had been received from there in the first six months 
of 1918. The Germans had so valued the potentialities 
of Congo that they had been intriguing for years in order 
to have it taken from us^* on various pretexts, and started 
a military expedition against it in 1914, which, of course, 
was completely defeated by the Belgian forces who soon 
took the offensive against the Germans in East Africa. 

Since the Belgians before the war were the least taxed 
people in Western Europe, it is clear that the nation, 
although cruelly hit by Germany, is not in desperate finan- 
cial straits, and the nation who will make loans to Belgium, 
to be repaid as the German indemnity comes in, will be 
running only a slight risk indeed. Let us hope, moreover, 
that the Allies will be able to induce Germany to acquit 
herself quickly of that restitution which in the eyes of the 
world will be for her the sole means of discharging herself 
— as far as money goes — from the crying debt she owes her 
small, innocent neighbor. Without that indemnity, the 
revival of Belgian economic life would necessarily be slow 
and incomplete. 

Moreover, the indemnification will have a great moral 
effect. Belgium would not start her revival with the neces- 



14 The two persons who were most active in a campaign against 
Congo ten years ago have proved during this war to be working for 
Germany: Casement and Morel. 



18 



sary zest and confidence if she were to remain under the 
discouraging impression that justice had been denied to her 
for the revolting treatment she has suffered at the hands of 
a ''nation of prey." Moral forces which have proved so 
powerful in this great struggle will have a great importance 
also in the period of restoration and it would be an error 
to consider the problem of the rebuilding of Belgium only 
from the point of view of economics. The Belgians have 
a very keen sense of justice and nothing will more certainly 
save them from demoralization than the complete realiza- 
tion of their firm hope that justice would finally prevail, a 
hope which made them stoically accept the numberless 
vexations and privations of the German regime. Satis- 
faction, unity, and order will be important factors in the 
reconstruction period. 

If Belgium is to escape the social and political conflicts 
which threaten to a less or greater extent all the nations in 
the ten years to come, it will be through a policy of con- 
ciliation and wisdom on the part of the various parties. 
The "Union Sacree," which since August 2, 1914, has 
silenced our sharp political strife should be perpetuated 
at least through the period during which the lo3^al cooper- 
ation of all competent men and of all classes of society will 
be needed to rebuild the fatherland. It is to be hoped that 
the party division will cease to be based upon religious 
questions. Many barriers have been done away with during 
the years of oppression or exile, sufferings accepted in com- 
mon and mutual help have enhanced fraternity. The social 
problems instead of the old quarrels must come to the fore. 
Since the question of the teaching of religion at school 
received in 1914 a solution that gives comparative satis- 
faction to all parties, the problem of education should be 
considered in a very different light: the development of 
popular education should take the direction of civic train- 
ing, of moral and phj^sical hygiene, and of professional 
teaching. 



19 



Our social legislation already quite considerable, should 
be increased with a few laws and revised in order to intro- 
duce more clearness, more unity, and more complete justice. 
Better housing, better food, higher salaries, better educa- 
tion for the laborers and their children, are ideals to be 
striven for insofar as the resources of the nation will allow, 
while one should encourage among the lower classes more 
self-respect of the kind that exists to so remarkable a degree 
in the United States. The law prohibiting the sale of 
liquors, which has just been passed, will contribute to that 
end. The King in his inaugural address to the Chambers 
has promised that he will recommend to his government the 
reform of our suffrage act in order to introduce equality 
among the voters instead of plural voting. This system 
was intended to give some advantage not to the rich nor to 
the landowners but to the intellectuals and to the more 
settled elements of the population : the aged, the married, 
the owners of homes. It was not anti-democratic but it was 
complicated and was suspected by the working classes to be 
a device to defeat the will of the people. Its suppression 
will therefore do much to lessen the antagonism between 
the bourgeoisie and the laborers. 

While the social problems in general are likely to be 
dealt with in a spirit of fraternity, this will be especially 
true of those connected with the victims of the war. In 
the crowded districts, the privations have been great and 
have seriously deteriorated the health of the population. 
It has been said that there are places where one-third of 
the people are suffering from some form of tuberculosis. 
The deportees, the persons exhausted by forced labor, the 
emaciated prisoners, all those wrecks of the great tempest, 
have a right to our sympathy and to our help. The 
wounded and mutilated have even more of a claim upon 
our attention. The task of reeducating them to the kind 
of work of which they are still capable has already been 
started, e.g. in the school of Portvillez, where the results 
have been so encouraging, that some of our Allies have 



20 

adopted these very methods for the reeducation of their 
own men.^^ 

In the northern part of the country, real fraternization 
between the "bourgeois" and both workmen and peasants 
has been hampered by the obstinacy with which the former 
cling to the use of French while the great majority of the 
latter only know Flemish. Under this name is understood 
one of the many Flemish dialects spoken in Belgium. The 
literary language corresponding to those ''patois" is sub- 
stantially the same as the language used in Holland under 
the name of ''Dutch." Since 1830, by reaction against 
Holland, the upper classes of Flanders have more and more 
discarded the use of that vernacular, and have adopted 
French to such an extent that most of them are hardly able 
to use even the local Flemish dialect for more than very 
simple phrases. In spite of this the literary language of 
the Flemings survived, thanks to its use in the pulpit, in 
cheap newspapers, and in popular books, until it was 
revived as a result of the democratic wave which carried 
Belgium like the rest of the world. An extensive and 
interesting literature has developed in the last fifty years 
and the restoration of linguistic unity in northern Belgium 
through the adoption by the bourgeoisie of the language of 
the people has been urgently advocated by the Flemish 
intellectuals and democratic politicians. Many laws have 
been passed tending to that result in the domain of admin- 
istration, education, justice, etc. The creation of a Flemish 
university was decided when the war broke out. In spite 
of those legislative attempts at satisfaction, the militant 
Flemings were not satisfied, because the opposition of the 
upper classes, and especially of the people of Brussels, was 
constantly defeating in fact what was granted in principle. 
The Germans, as is well known, tried to take advantage 
of that situation to divide the Belgians. They created a 



1 



15 Complete information on this subject of vital importance in the 
present time is to be found in L. de Paeuw "La Ee-education pro- 
f essionnelle des soldats mutiles et estropies. ' ' Paris, Berger-Levrault, 
1917. 



21 



Flemish university and divided the Belgian administration 
in two sections. The purpose was too evident to deceive the 
mistrustful Flemings, who knew that they had everything 
to lose in associating their fate with that of an empire 
which was only too well known as an oppressor of small 
nationalities. They decided to assume a passive attitude. 
Only a few obscure persons, most of them more or less 
bribed by Germany, engaged to pursue an active polic}^ and 
support the reform introduced by the Germans. Those 
so-called ''activists" were the object of the execration of 
all Belgian patriots both in Flanders and in Wallonia. 
The adversaries of the Flemish movement have unfor- 
tunately tried to turn the hostility against the "activists" 
into a suspicion against the loj^al pro-Flemish leaders. 
This, of course, has made the Flemings mistrustful and 
there is at present among them a strong party determined 
to see to it that, on the occasion of the restoration of Bel- 
gium, an end be put to the abnormal, anti-democratic sit- 
uation in regard to languages in Flanders. King Albert 
has promised in his speech to the parliament that new 
legislation will be enacted on the basis of a full equality 
for the two languages of Belgium. If that spirit prevails, 
this troublesome problem will be solved by the Belgians to 
the great benefit of Flanders and of Belgium in general. 
In contrast to the Polish, Czech, and Rumanian questions, 
this problem has a social rather than a nationalistic char- 
acter. It is no less urgent, however, that it receive a 
solution at this moment, when the organization of a new 
Europe is about to be undertaken on the basis of full satis- 
faction to all the aspirations of the various nationalities. 
The preservation of the Flemish nationality^ within the 
Belgian nation, which is the desire of the Flemings who 
have no griefs against their southern neighbors with whom 
they have been politically associated for centuries, having 
the same ideals, the same interests, the same intellectual 
life, the same social habits, will enable Belgium to play her 
full share in the concert of small nations that will develop 
from the war. 



The disappearance of foreign government or alien 
aristocracies all over Europe will give to each racial aneir 
linguistic group a chance to develop its own characteristics 
in art and literature, in social, political, and economic insti- 
tutions. All forces of the nation will work together for the 
development of the specific national life of the group, a 
conception in which the two ideals which have inspired the 
nations in the nineteenth century will be realized together : 
nationalism and democracy. 

There will certainly be a gain in the number of 
autonomous centers of culture. As a small nation capable 
of developing a life of her own, beneficient to mankind, 
Belgium has given proof of her ability. She will continue 
to play her part even more freely than before, since she has 
nobly thrown off the slavish garment of imposed neutrality 
which has hindered her development in so many ways, both 
material and moral, and has provided no real guarantee for 
the country. This declaration was another important state- 
ment of the King to his liberated nation on the day of his 
''joyous entry '^ into Brussels. The ''neutrality status" 
was not the only injustice imposed upon Belgium by the old 
school diplomats of 1830. The entrance to the harbor of 
Antwerp is subjected to restrictions that are unjust and 
should be removed by a settlement amicable to Holland. 
Luxemburg was for centuries a portion of Belgium and 
in 1830 the inhabitants strongly protested against the 
injustifiable measure that separated them from the new 
kingdom and exposed them to the covetousness of the con- 
querors. The Luxemburg people will decide in full inde- 
pendence whether they will remain a small duchy or 
associate their fate with a nation that has always treated 
them as separated brothers. There was a Luxemburg legion 
in the Belgian army. 

The suppression of all unjust obstacles to her national 
development, and guarantees against the renewal of an 
aggression against which Belgium found herself almost 
defenseless on account of her special status, this, together 



23 



with the granting of a just indemnity, is the treatment that 
Belgium expects from the powers assembled in Versailles. 
Belgium, who has played a prominent part in the Hague 
congresses, will be one of the most loyal and most enthusi- 
astic members of the society of nations that will tend to 
protect the world for a great length of time against those 
unspeakable woes of war which have afflicted so particularly 
the most pacific nation of the world. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




021 140 428 



I 



